Newark, N.J. ? Unnamed and unwanted, the young beagle mix was left anonymously in a drop box outside an Alabama pound. His life was supposed to end in a gas chamber.

Instead, the young stray emerged frightened but unscathed, wagging his tail. Now, he’s being hailed as a miracle dog, given the name Daniel after the biblical figure who survived the lion’s den.

And he has a fresh start in New Jersey, where a rescue group hopes to find him a good home.

Only three animals have survived the gas chamber at the Animal Control facility in Florence, Ala., in the past 12 years. “Maybe God just had a better plan for this one,” said city spokesman Phil Stevenson.

Daniel’s tail never stopped wagging as he stepped off a plane at a New Jersey airport, where he was flown Wednesday by the nonprofit Eleventh Hour Rescue group and placed with volunteer Jill Pavlik until he can be adopted.

“He’s absolutely fabulous,” Pavlik, a hairdresser who works and lives in northern New Jersey, said Friday. “He walked in the house like he had always lived there. He’s very sweet, happy and outgoing.”

Linda Schiller, the shelter’s founder and president, said the facility has already received about 100 applications from people around the country seeking to adopt Daniel. About half said they weren’t interested in adopting another dog if the 20-pound Daniel wasn’t available.

“Maybe we’ll get a cosmetic surgeon to make all our dogs look like Daniel,” Schiller said jokingly. She added that Daniel, while thin, hadn’t shown any residual effects of his ordeal.

No one is sure why Daniel was the lone survivor. “It may be that his breathing was shallow because of a cold or something,” Stevenson said.

Variables that could allow a dog to survive such a gassing include the number of animals placed in the chamber, the concentration of carbon monoxide, whether the chamber is airtight or gas is leaking out and the health of the animal, said Julie Morris, senior vice president of community outreach for the ASPCA. Young, healthy animals have the best chance for survival.